Traveling by air with children: a quick checklist for the concerned parent

• The day before you leave, give everyone a backpack and tell them to pack the toys they want to bring. After they've gone to bed, remove 65% of whatever they stuffed in there. Add a couple of very small new things to generate goodwill and distract from what's missing.
• Everyone with a luggage allowance gets a rolly suitcase. This eliminates a lot of fighting over who gets to pull it; however, make sure you can fit the child one on top of an adult one for when they inevitably tire and have a hard time just carrying themselves.
• If traveling with a stroller, remember that you'll have to empty and fold it to go through security, and again to get on the plane. Do not stuff every last thing in there as if it were the trunk of your car. It is, however, invaluable for holding coats and backpacks once you've checked in. Sometimes you may even opt to let a small child sit in it - but then you'll have to carry the coats.
• Abandon hope of getting people to eat healthy snacks in the airport. Airports are for McDonalds opportunities. Burger King if you're pushing the boat out. If you must bring healthy snacks, save them for the plane when children are trapped and the options are fewer.
• A new coloring book or sticker book for the plane is a nice idea, and might even keep a child occupied. If you give a child under five a sticker book, be prepared to spend much of your journey pushing up the stickers from behind the page so that they can lift them off. Don't forget a nice new pack of crayons or markers for the coloring book. The ones you already have at home will definitely not suffice. A brand-new pack of eight for each child will do nicely.
• Being read aloud to is an option that many children are happy with. Choose a book you're comfortable reading in front of adults as well as children, because all your fellow passengers will be listening. (Alternatively, I believe audiobooks are a thing you can get. I'd look into it, but I think my husband secretly likes the attention.)
• Bring a large backpack for your own carry-on. On the outward journey it should contain 1) Secret new presents, only to be produced at the gate or on the plane, 2) Clean under/outerwear for children and/or adults in a large ziplock bag. 3) Diapers and wipes as needed. More than you think could possibly be needed, just in case. 4) More wipes, in the most easily reached pocket, in case you can't find the other ones. 5) Adult emergency chocolate/granola bar. 6) Book, Kindle, or magazine, if you're an optimist and think you might get a chance to read something.
• On the way back, most of this space will be filled with Christmas presents, birthday presents, large stuffed animals, baby dolls, new boots, or duty free alcohol. The children will manage just fine without extra new airplane presents at this point. Try to remember the baby wipes, though.
• If all else fails, feign ignorance. Those children? No, they're not mine. Perfect your gaze into the middle distance and don't forget the earplugs.

Welcome

Mild is not a word that's ever applied to the weather in America. In Ireland, it implies an element of grateful surprise that it's not any colder. The weather is mild right now, which is lovely. It's not warm, but it's warmer than we have any right to expect at this point in October. It can be mild and raining at the same time, of course, but if it's mild and breezy and the clouds are scudding past, it's really very pleasant.

The plane came in at 4.30 am and Ireland came up with its fairy lights, as Louis Macniece said, even though it's not Christmas. They were little orange dots, like Lucozade. Exactly like Lucozade.

-----

That was Monday, and now it's Friday. We've been pretty useful, but I still wonder how we got to the end of the weekdays without feeling like we've done more than dip our toe into being here at all. We've established that Mabel will happily exist on unlimited potato waffles while Dash would like to eat nothing but fresh-baked baguettes from the local shops. Along with milk and chocolate biscuits, these will form the basis of their diets for two weeks, and I'm sure they won't die or develop rickets in that time. Probably.

I've also been reminded that while Dash in personality is very attached to schedule and routine and predictability, in physiology he adapts much more quickly to the five-hour time difference than his sister does. However, since Mabel has slept through, or almost through, every night - in contrast to past years when she's been wide awake and wanting to play at 3am for nights on end - I suppose I'll forgive her the screaming and kicking and hysterical "I'm not tired"-ing at 11.30 for the past two nights.

---------

Never mind all this talking. How about a picture or two...

'Scuse me

In Ireland. Busy drinking tea and mainlining chocolate digestives. Back soon.

I felt this embodied the true spirit of the National Natural History Museum,
unchanged from school trips through the ages.

Way too many things to think about

It's October tomorrow. That means I've a lot of planning to do. For instance:

Planning in further detail our trip to Ireland at the end of the month -

• what I'll wear
• what I have to buy in order to wear these things 
• how I'll masquerade as a stylish person instead of a slobby soccer mom who wears the same pair of jeans and scuffed mary-janes every single day
• if the kids need new shoes for all the walking in rain that will happen (answer: yes)

And boring stuff like

• car seats to borrow
• things for kids to do on the journey

Additionally,

• touristy-type things we might do when we're there, now that the children are a little older
• people I need to contact to see if we can pin down when we might see them
• how wet an Autumn they'll be having for those specific two weeks

Also, not to forget,

• working out our best marathon-viewing opportunities, because of course B is running the marathon. 

Then, as a subheading, we have not merely

• Halloween in Dublin: do we have to bring costumes? what costumes? where will we do the trick-or-treating? does B want to do some sort of elaborate themed family thing? (Answer: over my dead body; only if he organizes the whole thing; therefore, no.) Dash is talking about some variation on last year (Luke Skywalker) that involves a green lightsaber (very specifically) and a brown cloak and I think it's just a ploy to get a new lightsaber when it's neither his birthday nor Christmas.

but also (sigh, sunrise sunset, etc),

• Mabel's fifth birthday, in Dublin: do we have a family party? In which case, where? Can I bake a cake in our Air B'n'B rental apartment? Do we bring presents to Dublin? (No. What sort of idiot do you take me for?) But then I need to buy or order presents before we go so they're here when we get back.

And of course, planning a birthday party with her friends for the weekend after we get back, when we'll be only just over the jet lag but I'll still be expected to infuse us all with sugar some more and again and repeatedly, unless she wants a broccoli cake which sounds to me like a great idea but maybe not to her brother's taste.

Which planning will not be a trivial matter even though I can just bung an evite out there (thank the deity for evites; I love 'em) because we'll have to figure out

(a) just girls?
(b) which girls?
(c) just girls and one boy?
(d) siblings?
(e) just the one sibling of the one boy so Dash has a friend?
(f) and the one who's the twin of one of the girls?
(g) but then, what about the boy whose birthday party she's attending next week?
(h) parents?

And then we have to hammer out the decision in such a way that she doesn't decide the next day and every next day after that to change her mind in some new and unspecified direction. Which probably means just inviting feckin' everyone.

And then, there's always looking way ahead to Christmas and making a cake and planning to go to the Nutcracker for the first time and whatever other things we should do when we have Christmas here instead of in Ireland.


So you can see why planning what we're having for dinner tonight has just fallen completely by the wayside. Maybe there's something in the freezer.

Think calming thoughts.

Notes on re-entry

O'Hare airport, Saturday afternoon.


I feel as if when I get back to my kids, they might have aged ten years in my absence. I can’t be sure time was passing at the same rate where they were. It probably wasn’t.

Talking to the kids on the phone is a disembodied experience. Their voices don’t even sound the same, and they don’t know what to say to me and they nod or shrug and forget that I can’t tell. Talking to them on Skype is even odder because I can see them, but only in two dimensions. My children are a 360-degree experience, a full-body contact sport, an assault on all the senses. Being at a remove changes them and I don’t know who they are, those flat noisy beings who flit in and out of view.

On our first Skype call, on Thursday, Mabel looked at me and said, “I’m thirsty.” She clearly expected me to do something about it.

I am a woman with children, almost always. Can’t you tell by looking at me? Isn’t it obvious? Don’t I have it tattooed on my face (in lines) and streaked through my hair (in grey) and written in braille all over my body? Apparently not; I couldn’t tell whether anyone else at BlogHer was a mother just by looking at her (unless she had a baby with her, as some did). We were all singular. 

I am at a remove from them, not just physically, but mentally too. Not simply that I’m not thinking about them, but that I’m some other version of myself who leads a parallel life without children. How can they exist if I’m not there with them? It’s a little lonely, but I don’t feel a void. If I think about them a lot, if I tried to, or if I see other children the right age, I could miss them plenty bad. But mostly they are existing in their universe and I in mine. Our universes will align again and return to their rightful place soon. I’m not ready for more time in this one yet, but it was interesting to visit.

Of course, nothing exists if when I’m not there in it, observing it, with it. It all leaps into being from its flat-pack life as I walk into the room, as my train approaches the station, or my plane flies over the pop-up trees and houses, as we slowly round the curve of the globe. Isn’t that true for you too? Isn’t that how life works?

I trusted, and my trust has not been misplaced. I had faith that they would be returned to me in the condition I left them, plus or minus a few meals, a few ice creams, a few squabbles and scraps and scrapes; and they will be. I believe it. I believe in them. I didn’t invent them; though I did conjure them into being, once upon a time.

Perfect two

Years ago, years and years ago, we took a few days in the Wesht of Ireland, and we drove there in my tiny wafer-thin car, and at some point along the road to Clifden, or Roundstone, or somewhere like that, I conjured up our imaginary future children in the back seat and made some brave, foolhardy even, remark about how young Ermingarde and Lavinia would react to whatever nonsense had just been said. Not to mention the little fella. We had to think for the little fella's name, but settled on Murgatroyd, which is the name of a duck, for reasons that are not actually clear to me.

To be honest, I don't even know if Lavinia was Lavinia, though I know Ermingarde was definitely Ermingarde, unless she was Ermintrude.

That was probably the first time we discussed our imaginary offspring. No, that's not true. We first discussed names when we'd been going out only a few months, less than a year, certainly; and at the tender age of not yet 21, that's a long time to be dating and still early on for such weighty discussions. We were in Lisbon, on a bench in the gardens of the Monastery of Jeronimos, I believe, though that's not important; I'm just giving you a sense of place. B had mentioned that he was partial to a particular girl's name, and I commented that, since putting it together with his last name would make the name of a famous film star, that would not be practical. Our friend appeared around the corner just as I was saying, "Well, if we have a girl, I'm not naming her that," and was justifiably a little concerned, no matter how much I reassured her that the whole conversation was extremely hypothetical.

But by the time we were driving to Roundstone it was eight years later and it was all just that little bit less hypothetical, even though at that point our permanent residences were an ocean apart and we hadn't quite figured out how to get around that fact. This was the trip where we both agreed that we wanted to get around it, although it took another 18 months for events to conspire to let that happen. 

And I think it was then, after conjuring Ermingarde and Murgatroyd and their sister, whoever she was, that we agreed that 2.5 was a good number of children. Two and a half. Very sensible, though maybe not entirely practical. Two, with an option on a third, was how we left it.

And thus it stayed, for a long time. But the option has never been taken up, and it's due to expire very soon, if it hasn't already done so. Maybe it's because I can't remember what the other girl was called. Maybe it's because I can't even imagine having another girl or another boy; or not having one or the other. By which I mean, that if a hypothetical third child was a girl, I'd still be sorry about the boy she wasn't. And if it was a boy, likewise.

So I think two is it. And two is perfect, because we have two perfect children, no matter how much and how often they drive us both demented, individually and one at a time, and we want to run away and drink a lot of wine and sleep forever. We'll still keep 'em.


This post is part of a virtual baby shower in honour of two of the Irish bloggers who have welcomed and are about to welcome their own perfect second children. Many congratulations to Aine of (the currently on hiatus) AndMyBaby and Lisa of Mama.ie.

Yesterday's post in the bloghop was by Laura at My Internal World, and tomorrow's will be from Kieran at Go Dad Go.

And today's mystery letter is S.

Biting and writing

Things and stuff, things and stuff. It's nice to be back here with my things and my stuff and all the Christmas decorations put away since I never put any out to begin with. Dash is at school and Mabel is napping, since she woke up at 3.30am thank you jet lag. I think I might bake something soon.

Speaking of which, it is an excellent idea to bake something just before you go away and leave it in the freezer so that when you come back and you're mainlining tea to keep awake, you have something nice and homemade to go with it just 15 seconds in the microwave away. The only thing I did wrong was to leave only six chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins waiting for us, because they didn't last long.

Other things you might have missed because I didn't mention them here include the fact that Dash lost his first tooth (not counting that one he knocked out as a baby, a mere month after it came in, great maternal trauma):

It (the bottom one - the top opposite is the gap he's basically always had) was wobbly, and wobblier, and I thought Santa might be bumping into the Tooth Fairy but it held on a few days longer and then he and Mabel and their dad and their cousins, but not me because I escaped to meet a friend and also had bashed my toe a la Amalah that morning*, all went ice-skating and when they stopped for an ice-cream break his father pointed out that his tooth was gone. And Dash said "Is it?" and so we think he swallowed it but maybe it's out there on the ice somewhere waiting to trip someone up.

Then there were some negotiations and a note was written to the Tooth Fairy (by me, which is a little ironic) explaining that Dash would like dollars, not euros, and also that he had swallowed the tooth, and I had to tell him that the Tooth Fairy had left her dollars in Dublin where we were not at that moment, so also that he would like to get his money tomorrow night instead. I think he was a bit jaded by the whole charade, but he wanted his dollars, dammit, and luckily for him the Metro ticket machine had given me dollar coins just before we left the country, so it all worked out. Though the writing notes to myself was a bit surreal.

........

I did some writing (elsewhere, to which I'd rather not link because it has my real name, but if you came here from there that's lovely and I'm thrilled to see you, please stick around) and got lots of nice comments and some off-the-wall ones that made me think about, well, how you can never tell the full story, I suppose. Maybe what I'm trying to do here is to make you understand me, but that's nonsense because there's always more, there are always qualifications, provisos, quid pro quos (thank you, Genie from Aladdin), ways in which I have to explain that I didn't mean what you thought I meant, I meant something else.

Clarity; I like clarity. That's why I'm an editor. I disambiguate. But eventually you have to just leave it alone and accept that you can't get everything across to everyone, and you wouldn't actually want to.

So I will continue to offer snippets of what the ex-pat experience is for me, and how Ireland feels and how America feels, and try to find words that explain how the cold hard sunlight outside my window parches the grass of the backyard in winter in an entirely different way from the soft air of my homeland, where you don't understand why they talk about how green it is until you go somewhere else and then come back.

........

Other items of note: I now have a Search tool (over there -> under the tag cloud), and you can sign up for e-mail updates whenever I post, if you like that sort of thing. And I made some tabs and put all the links to other people's blogs on one, so you should take a look at that.

And if I can gently remind you here that liking me on Facebook and/or following me on Twitter makes me very happy and gets you extra bits of wit and wisdom and cute photos sometimes, as well as links to new posts, I'll do that too.

........

Time to read a book and bake something and wonder when I have to wake Mabel in order to pre-emptively rescue bedtime.


* My toe was not actually broken. I wasn't limping at all by the next day. But still, ow.

Required reading

You might wonder why our suitcases coming back were so heavy, especially considering the biggest new/reclaimed items we returned with were unwieldy but comparatively lightweight: one foot-high stuffed reindeer, one ukelele, and an extra doll.

But then, there was this little haul:

Yes, we picked up a couple of books along the way.

You'll note that many of these do not look new. In fact, some are positively antique. That's because I have this little habit of raiding the bookshelves in "my" bedroom at my parents' house when I'm back and removing some of the most meaningful items in case some day everything gets somehow disbursed to a charity shop before I can reclaim it. Additionally, in a fit of nostalgia, B rescued a stack of his old beloved Asterix and Tin-Tin comics from his nephew, on whom he'd bestowed them in 1999 when he emigrated. He was always concerned that said nephew did not fully appreciate them, but in fact his mistrust was misplaced - nephew had enjoyed the stories and kept them through a house move - but now was happy to give them back to someone with safer hoarding tendencies.

Shall I catalogue the whole bunch for you? Oh, okay then...

Left-hand column, from the bottom:

• sundry Asterixes
• sundry Tin-Tins
• Ian McEwan, Sweet Tooth
• AM Homes, May We Be Forgiven
• Exploring English 1
• Roald Dahl, The BFG
• Two Mr Men books
• Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach

The two novels are a present from my sister-in-law, who is knowledgeable about books. She was delighted to hear I hadn't read them, but it's not really that much of a surprise since the only books I read last year were probably a few tried and trusted Dick Francises.

Exploring English was the Inter-Cert short-story collection - that is, B and I and every other 15-year-old in Ireland studied many of its stories. It's a really great selection of Irish and other fiction, and now holds pride of place beside our copy of Soundings (the original, scribbled full of notes; not the recent reprint).

I bought the Dahls because Dash is really getting into this chapter book thing, and several items from his cousin's bookshelf were eagerly consumed (via reading out loud by someone else, I mean) over the break. I produced James and the Giant Peach at the airport yesterday morning, and this happened:

 And this,

And also this

All that got him triumphantly to the end of the first paragraph, and he hadn't actually retained any of the information, but it's a good bit above his reading level, and anyway, it's the intention that delights me. We did read some of it to him as well.

Anyway. The right-hand stack, bottom to top, goes as follows:

• Deb Perelman, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
• Marian Keyes, The Mystery of Mercy Close
• JRR Tolkein, The Hobbit
• Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons
• Noel Streatfield, Ballet Shoes
• Antonia Forrest: Autumn Term, End of Term, Cricket Term, Attic Term
• Rumer Godden: The Peacock Spring and The Greengage Summer

I am totally delighted with the cookbook, which has been on my Christmas list ever since Deb announced it would be happening, back in the Spring. I only opened it this morning for the first time, I'm halfway through the first chapter, and I can categorically state that the woman is a genius. As if we didn't know that already.

The Keyes is the last in the series of sister-books that began way back with Watermelon in 1998. She's a delight and a wonder and I and started it yesterday and despite children on airplanes I'm halfway through. It's immensely comforting to have such an entertaining piece of south county Dublin sitting on my bookshelf for whenever I need it.

And the others, well, they're special, obviously. My copy of The Hobbit was given to me by my aunt on my 11th birthday (this fact is recorded in my wobbly cursive on the title page), the Swallows and Amazons series was one my Dad (the hobbyist yacht-builder and lover of messing-about-in-boats) and I read together, and I look forward to seeing just how well or badly it has aged when I share it with Dash in a year or three. Noel Streatfield was my tween author of choice - more sophisticated than Enid Blyton but before I'd got to LM Montgomery, perhaps. So very British, so very pre-wartime, so very full of optimism that every little girl had inside her an actress, a ballerina, or perhaps an engineer.

The Antonia Forrest books were just a little more up-to-date - though it's hard to pinpoint since the first was published initially in 1948, the second 10 years later, and the last two in the 70s - but they all take place within about two years of each other. They're your standard sisters-at-English-boarding-school stories, but with a side of maturity, boyfriends, and comparative religion never seen in Blyton. (Mabel's real name comes from one of the characters, who always struck me as the coolest, nicest, strongest girl-you'd-want-to-be ever.)

Then, the Goddens. I picked up the first half of her fascinating memoir, A Time to Dance, No Time to Cry at the Labor Day book sale (local institution) and loved reading about the life behind the woman whose books had held me so as a teenager. I always consider The Greengage Summer to be the first "grown-up" book I read - not that the protagonists are older than teenagers, but because the narrative is non-linear and flits from afterwards to before to during without warning. It at first confused, and then elated me to pick out the strings of this story, steeped in heady, sensual, through-adolescent-eyes France, and fit them together myself. The Indian Summer is not quite so good, but smells and colours of India come through so vividly that it was no surprise to find out from Godden's memoir that she lived there for much of her life.

So I should manage to keep my new year's resolution of reading more quite easily. I didn't say I'd be reading new books, did I?

Frequent rainbows

I always have Good Hair in Ireland. My skin feels softer, I wore my contact lenses two days running without my eyes shrivelling up and falling out, and when I made lemon scones for yesterday's brunch - even though the tablespoon measure I used turned out to be not-a-tablespoon and I had to chuck in a load more flour to soak up the extra milk - the dough was soft and dreamy to work with and the scones turned out perfectly.

No wonder people want to live here, is what I'm saying. Near-constant rain is a small price to pay for eternal youth and forgiving dough. And to be honest, today is the first day of actual soakage, precipitation-wise. A few drops fell when we were at a playground the other day and we started to head for the shops, but I noticed that all the local children didn't budge, and after a few minutes' dalliance by the park fountain, the drops had ceased and everyone was back on the swings.

Today, in contrast, is one of those days that just looks grey until you focus on the middle distance as you look out the window and the steady tiny drops resolve themselves like a magic-eye picture and you realise that it's lashing. It's the wetting-est rain, this stealth rain - not a torrential downpour as we might get in America, but a constant, fine mist just on the falling side of gravity, sometimes driven sideways by the wind. This qualifies as a filthy day, with no innuendo necessary.

Rain is forecast for the rest of the week, which is about right, since we're heading down the country (out of town, as you might say) for a little extended-family getaway for a couple of days. I had hoped for walks on the beach, but not in the rain.

And then I went upstairs to find something and got sidetracked by a leftover scone or two, and the rain stopped and a big wodge of blue appeared in the sky and Mabel called me into the bathroom to show me the beautiful rainbow. She's never seen a rainbow before, because they're a much rarer phenomenon in the US, and also because when you tell a four-year-old to look over there while you're driving and you see something interesting, they don't find the right direction for ten minutes and by then it's long gone.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in here somewhere.

Dispatches

I think we're finally on Irish time now, after five days in the country.

The night before last was terrible as both children apparently overcorrected and set themselves to some middle-eastern time zone (Afghanistan was my best guess) by getting up for the day at 4am. I spent half an hour or so trying to convince them both to go back to sleep and an uncomfortable hour as the ham in a Dash-and-Mabel-bread sandwich (so I suppose I should say peanut butter) trying to keep them both in bed, but at 5.30 I threw in the towel and sent them to wake their father. Then I went back to bed till nine.

[I decided lately, in some sleep-deprived haze or other, that exceptional people are always challenging as children. My children will clearly be very exceptional when they're done. If I don't do for them first.]

But anyway. This morning they waited till daylight to wake up (and that's some achievement when day doesn't break till after 8am), so I'm pronouncing us cured. I expect no more sleep problems for the rest of our trip. (I am also expecting a Rolls Royce and a fully staffed Greek island for Christmas. Yup.)

I have finished my shopping and wrapped all my presents, and they are reposing in the big suitcase they arrived in because I'm afraid to put anything too tempting-looking under the tree. We saw three sets of carol singers today, as well as the live crib (two donkeys, two sheep, and a goat - no actual humans), and have not yet been rained on, though we've narrowly avoided it a few times.

After three days, the British (and sometimes Irish) voices on the TV no longer jar to my ears, and now watching an American film (School of Rock at the moment) I can hear the American accents clearly. When we're in the US they just blend in to normal, because there's never any counterpoint. (No wonder you people think everyone else's accents are cute. You never hear them unless you're watching Love, Actually.)

Dash refuses to change his watch to Irish time. He informs us at regular intervals what time it is in America. Sometimes he then counts up the extra five hours to tell us what time it is here too. Possibly he's afraid America won't still be there to go back to if he insults it by ignoring its time.

Titles are for people who've had more sleep

Jetlag. Bullet points. Two things that go together like jaffa cakes and a cuppa.

• Irish dishwashers should be made with double the normal capacity on the top shelf, to accommodate all these cups of tea people keep drinking. Or making and forgetting to drink. Somebody get on that, and don't forget to cut me in on the royalties, 'kay?
• We'd hardly been in the country half an hour before Dash asked me "Why does everyone keep saying 'Thanks a million'? Why does Daddy keep saying it?" He also asked B why he kept calling him Ted. I think someone was returning to his native idioms a bit hastily.
• I'll have to explain the Ted thing for 95% of my audience, won't I? Maybe tomorrow.
• Travelling was a breeze, except for the A-1 idiot rookie mistake I made of checking the stroller through with our cases. Mabel had been walking the whole time, pulling her little blue butterflies-and-hearts case adorably, and I saw no reason why that should change. (Doh.) As soon as the case went away on the big black conveyer belt of PleaseGetThatBackToMeLater, of course, she turned around to me and said "Pick meeeee uuuuuuup."
• We always gate-check the stroller. It's why we have a stroller. I don't know what I was thinking. Blame the euphoria of getting to the airport on time in spite of catching our Metro (to the bus to the airport) with literally, I am not being hyperbolic here, seconds to spare. 

[Mabel is playing just out of my line of sight. Every now and then I hear her exclaim "Jesus!"(more like Cheezuz, but whatever), and then I remember that she's playing with the tiny figures in her aunt's crib/creche/nativity that's set up inside the front door. So that's entirely appropriate. At least, until I find out what she's done with the donkey, I suppose.] Ooh, risque Christmas humour. Do I dare?

• Somehow, I have lost an earring, which is very annoying because I only have the one pair. And now I only have the one. It's either on the plane, or in an airport, or in any of the three beds I was sleeping in at one point last night, or on the sofa where I was also "sleeping" while Mabel was wide awake at 1am. 
• The children took turns to be awake last night, which was lovely for them, I'm sure, but not so much for me. Sleep went like this (you probably don't need this much information, but I have to download it from my brain somewhere):
  - On the plane: 3 hours for Mabel, 2 hours for Dash, about 20 minutes for me, none for B. (He never sleeps on planes.)
  - After we arrived (at 5am local time): Big nap for Mabel, medium-sized nap for me, small nap for B, no nap for Dash, who refused to be tired but got progressively crazier and crazier. High on coke and speed, as his father said. At 3.30 we got into the car and Dash conked out in five minutes. We brought him home and put him to bed, where he stayed ...
  - At bedtime: Mabel went to bed at 8pm (very reasonable), I followed not to long afterwards, around 9.30, maybe.
  - In the middle of the night: Mabel woke at midnight, starving. I fed her two pieces of bread with butter and a potato waffle, and after two more trips downstairs, to the bathroom, etc, she finally went back to sleep around 1.30am. Maybe.
  - ... and then, what felt like a  moment later, Dash woke up. It was actually 4.30, so I suppose 13 hours of sleep was pretty reasonable, but I was sort of not enthused to see him just then. I fielded him till 5.15 and then handed over to his father and went back to bed until 9am.

• So things should improve from here, right?

Lofty aspirations

I registered for BlogHer. See, I have a logo and everything. (Look right. Down a bit.)

I have no idea how that will go, but what the heck. There was an early-bird deal, so the actual conference ticket was as inexpensive as it could possibly be (unless I had sponsorship or something, I suppose). If I can't go, or chicken out, I can transfer the ticket to someone else any time before the end of June, and I'm sure it would be pretty easy to find someone to take it.

It's in Chicago, which is not exactly down the road, but a flight for one isn't going to break the bank. I suppose now it'll be in DC again in 2014, but if I'd waited it wouldn't ever be. I'll have to find someone to share a room with; I think there are forums to link up with people. If you're reading and you're going and you need a roomie, hi! Consider me! I'm quite tidy and I don't think I snore.

I don't know what I expect to get out of BlogHer. I know it's a huge conference. I know there'll be bloggers there I read but am too shy to talk to. I know there'll be bloggers there I'll start reading afterwards. I hope I'll meet some people who might start reading my blog. I hope I can manage not to die obsessing about what I'm wearing and how my hair looks the whole time. (Honestly, my hair usually looks good if I make any sort of effort. I'll be obsessing about how thin I am or am not.) I hope it will not be anything like high school.

Mostly, though, I want to go because more and more I'm identifying as a blogger. It's what I am, while I'm a mom and an editor (on hiatus) and an ex-pat and a wife. I don't want to put ads here at this point, and I'm pretty sure I don't have nearly enough traffic to bother, but I would love it a lot if some day this could become part of, or lead to, something that brought in a portion of income.

So I'm going to go to a conference, because blogging is my self-appointed, not-for-profit job.

That which is not happening

Yesterday I thought for a while that I might have to fly home to Ireland for a few days as soon as this weekend, to sort out some family stuff.

This morning, I found that wouldn't be necessary, and took myself off high alert. So that's all right then.

A lot flew through my mind in a very short space of time, though. I've never left the children overnight, not even for one night, not even when giving birth to the second one - we were only at the birthing center for five hours or so before we came back again with a brand new baby. I've flown with my children plenty of times, but I've never flown without them. That would be a totally new experience.

My initial reaction, of course, when the possibility was raised, was "Noooo! I can't! It's impossible!" Because I am a planner who fears change, especially change that comes quickly. I don't much like surprises, either. All the reasons why I couldn't crowded down on me: Mabel can't get to sleep without me; everyone has a cough and might be getting sick; Halloween; Mabel's birthday; B can't cook; B doesn't know that they have to go to the bathroom before dance class and I might forget to tell him; I'm tired...

In the brief periods last night in between Mabel-waking no.1 (quick and easy), Dash needing to be shepherded to the bathroom because he'd had three last drinks of water, and Mabel-waking no. 2 (prolonged and terrible), I couldn't fall asleep because my brain was busy outlining all the things that would need to be done, all the things that would make it impossible, and all the things I would need to remember; as well as all the things I wasn't looking forward to or didn't know about once I would get there.

But I cannot tell a lie: some of my thoughts drifted in other directions. What would it be like to catch a plane on my own? Could I just bring a carry-on? Should I invest in a decent pair of black trousers to look respectable and not like a harried mother of two caterwaulers? Should I bring my black boots? Might I, perhaps, pick up a neat little backpack with a padded section that would hold my laptop in REI before I left?

Would I be able to steal wi-fi from my parents' neighbours if I asked them very nicely, assuming there was some signal I could pick up from the house, if I was staying there? Should I actually put some books on my under-employed Kindle, because I'd have a lot of time on my hands in airports? How would I cope with all that free time compounding the guilt of leaving B to cope with everyone for four whole days? And four whole bedtimes and four whole (long, long) nights?

Of course, B would be fine. He's known these children just as long as I have, and loves them just as much, and if his culinary skills are lacking it's only due to my own orneryness in not wanting to share my kitchen, and he's perfectly capable of making pasta and opening a tin of baked beans, and he scrambles a mean egg to boot.

What's more, when I floated the idea to the children yesterday afternoon, Dash was fine with it straight away. Mabel was resistant at first, but after an hour or so mulling it over she was already telling me how she'd draw me a picture to take with me and how she'd go to bed nicely for Daddy. It would probably be a huge turning point in her sleeping/weaning.

So this morning when it turned out I didn't need to go at all, my feelings were just a tiny bit mixed.

Mostly I was relieved, of course. Relieved that the emergency was not really an emergency after all, that the sky hasn't fallen just yet. Happy that I didn't have to run round like a headless chicken booking a ridiculously expensive last-minute flight and trying to stock up the fridge with easily prepared food and writing excessive lists of information. Very pleased not to be trying to predict when exactly this incoming hurricane of ours would be making transAtlantic flights at best unpleasant or else totally unviable.

Suddenly, my life looked laughably easy. I could think about Halloween costumes! I could continue to plan Mabel's birthday party! I could clean the toilets! (Yes, really, for one fleeting moment I almost thought that.)

But then, I would quite like a cute little backpack with a padded space for my laptop. Maybe for Christmas.

Postcards from Chicago

 

First, to show you what angelic travellers our children are, here's Mabel on the metro to the airport, listening to some music.

Here she is doing some colouring in her new colouring book (five crayons at a time) while we wait at our gate.

Here are Dash and his father making some paper aeroplanes to pass the time. (Who thought a book of paper aeroplanes were a good idea? More to the point, why do I keep typing "airplanes"? How long have I been in this country anyway?)

Chicago! This gorgeous thing is called Cloud Gate, but known locally as The Bean. For obvious reasons.

 

I took a lot of photos of it. This was close to the middle, underneath, looking up.

At this point Mabel had shed her shoes and socks, of course. That day saw the end of the warm weather, but she spent the rest of the trip refusing to wear a coat and trying to take her shoes off again anyway.

Dash admiring the view from the 96th floor of the John Hancock building. That's Lakeshore Drive, looking north.

On a bus to the Museum of Science and Industry. This photo is much more representative of our trip than any of the others, but you need to add a soundtrack of exasperated parents telling them to leave each other alone and sit quietly and fine do you want to watch another episode of Word Girl on the iPod?

 Dash down a coalmine, because the museum is just that cool.

On the L (the El?), plotting our route to support the runner on the morning of the marathon. Well, no, actually I just gave them the maps to entertain themselves and they were mostly just figuring out how to fold them back up again. (Then I had to tell them how being able to fold a map up properly is a very important disappearing art, like reading a map, for that matter.)

Also, please note that Mabel is sporting tights-as-leggings here, because she refused to put on anything further. I hid her under a blanket in the stroller and when she finally got out, I managed to coax a pair of trousers onto her.

But by then, she was barefoot again. Sigh.

In short, Chicago

I could just sit down for two hours - if I had two hours - and spew out a spool of words about our long weekend in Chicago, but I think I need to use my editorial function a bit more wisely than that. Here, then, are the posts you might or might not be seeing in the future, in no particular order:

The one about how small children don't like going from mild to cold weather in the space of a 40-minute train trip, and will continue to refuse to wear a coat, even when they already have a cough that sounds like one hound of Hell, for days afterwards because if they do not bow to outside influences like parents, what chance does Weather have?

The one with all the photos.

The one about six-and-a-half and whether that's a thing or not, the way three-and-a-half and four-and-a-half are recognised Horrible Stages, because I hope to God this here thing with the 6.5-year-old is a Thing because it's Horrible and it's as if I've just been handed an entirely new child whose ways I have to figure out double-quick before he kills us all or vice versa, which I was not expecting, frankly.

The one about how we nearly didn't go at all because Dash nearly had croup, and then on Saturday night I was convinced that instead of supporting the marathon runner the next morning we'd probably be busy taking Mabel to the emergency room because she coughed twice and that was enough, but it all turned out okay in the end except for that one other little coughing fit that made the nice airline lady come and tell me about her granddaughter who had a cough that sounded exactly like that and it turned out to be pneumonia, and then I felt like I was the one getting pneumonia for the next hour, but then she didn't cough again and now they're both back at school praise be to the holy deities.

The one about how getting a suite instead of just a room with two beds really didn't make any difference because Dash refused to sleep with Mabel so it was still one adult and one child to a bed and the door in between was quite pointless though I suppose maybe I was spared some sounds of snoring, perhaps.

The one about how your priorities have to change from getting decent food into them to getting any sort of food into them because when you're away from home and held hostage to the hotel restaurant and the crappy little hotel gift shop full of cookies and dollar-fifty apples you just need the children to eat and suddenly a plate of french fries sounds like a perfectly good dinner option if he would only damn well eat it when it's there rather than refusing it and getting hungry half an hour later.

The one about how parenthood changes you because when the small child asks you if there's a bathroom on this train, instead of holding her out at arm's length, you hold her closer on your lap and wonder how bad your jeans will look if they get soaked with pee; but how happy I was - I cannot express just how happy - that she managed to hold it in every time and make it to the bathroom so my jeans were unscathed and so was Chicago's public transport system.

The one about how all American cities look the same at first until you look a little closer and get to know them, but all airports really do occupy the same unchanging point in time and space and it makes no difference where you are because it's like being in a vortex of expensive food choices and pleasingly sanitary bathrooms until you finally get to leave. But Mabel won't keep her shoes on there either.

----

I think I'll just do the photos.

Two boys, six years, three continents

Thanks to the wonders of modern air travel and funding for conference attendees, Dash has met his friend Moose every summer (and a couple of times in between) since they were born, in places both far flung and more domestic. Here's a quick history.

Can I eat him? wondered Dash

With a giant two-month lead, six-month-old Dash was way ahead of the little Moose. At least, he could sit up without listing to the side. This first momentous encounter took place in Delaware, of all places.

Feed us, zoo people

Things had evened up a bit by the next summer, here waiting for lunch at the Sydney Zoo, Australia. Someone asked us how old they were. We replied "That one's 14 months and this one just turned 12 months." "Oh, are they twins?"

A cheeky little vintage, this 2008 stuff

On top of Gaudi's La Pedrera in Barcelona, two-year-old Dash and Moose stopped for a sophisticated water-and-crackers break.

Ireland calls for sweaters

At almost three, a colouring challenge was issued in Cork. (Dunnes Stores gleaming enticingly in the background there.)

Mooom, he's touching me

 By four, Spider-Man just needed to chill out in Maryland.

Three still fit in one chair

Suddenly, just a year later, we had two great big five-year-olds (and a small girl) in Wales.

It's called "mafs." "No, it's math." "No, mafs." Etc.

And now they're six and yesterday they were together again, playing Angry Birds, having lightsaber fights, and pillow fighting on the sofa (not simultaneously). See you next summer, Moose!

Missed ewe

The grass needs mowing, the washing machine won't spin, and I still haven't tried out the new vacuum cleaner on the stairs, but the kitchen is mostly clean and we are fully stocked with bananas, beer, homemade bread, cookies, and even orange juice. (Really, what more could a man want? Steak, you say? Pshaw!)

Mabel sat up this morning and asked, with a huge sigh, "When will Daddy get back?" Dash packed up a Father's Day package of his own making yesterday and put it waiting on the sideboard where B will see it as soon as he comes in the door.

I think we missed him, for six days and five nights. We're a reasonably well-oiled machine without him - I even caught the trash collection this morning - and there might be a bit less friction regarding certain people getting dressed in a timely fashion, but there's less laughter too.

And I have to admit I'm looking forward to staying in bed a bit longer of a morning. I'm just not sure if I get to start that tomorrow, or if I have to give the traveller a day's grace.

I took the BART in San Francisco (but not this time)

I left part of my heart in San Francisco in the summer of 1994, and since then I've been lucky enough to go back a few times and check that it's still there. I have cousins who grew up in Dublin but now live near San Jose, and a while ago I realised I could marry my husband's penchant for running long distances in new places to my desire to see cities other than our hometown. So on Sunday he ran the Big Sur marathon, and we made it a long weekend in California. 

Mabel balancing on a log and flagrantly disregarding the amazing view

Last time we were there was only two and a half years ago, but in the life of a child that makes a pretty big difference. We decided there wasn't much point going into the city that time, as at the ages of three and almost one, there was nothing they'd really remember, and B and I had both been before. But this past Friday, we drove up from our hotel right beside the crashing Pacific and swooped down to and across the Golden Gate Bridge, immortalised in Monsters V Aliens. The kids, of course, were mostly unimpressed and much more interested in climbing on dangerous objects than posing for photos, but I did my best to inhale the vista of the beautiful bay.  

Dash ditto

(Being on East-Coast time was also a great advantage, once we'd got through the two hours everyone was awake before it was even daylight. We had breakfast promptly at six, and were in the city before 9am, with plenty of parking spaces right beside tourist attractions.)  

The amazing view

Then we turned around, went back over the bridge, and headed to Lombard St, the twistiest street in the world. I had never been there, despite a summer working directly opposite it, so it was fun for all of us to wend our way down in our enormous rental SUV. (The smell of rental cars is the smell of California to me, even though I have rented cars in other states too.)  

Twisty turny

After that, it was up the other side to Coit Tower for some more views, and then a stop in North Beach for coffee in Caffe Trieste, where Francis Ford Coppola and his buddies used to hang out in the Beat days.  The summer I spent in the city, I worked in a cafe just up the street, at Grant and Green, but it's long since been turned into a club of some sort, because - ridiculously - that was 18 years ago and I was already an adult back then. So whenever I go to San Francisco, I have to go to North Beach and Columbus Avenue, because that's my part of town. 

That's an iced coffee, not a beer. I promise.

After coffee we went to City Lights and bought a couple of books for the kids, and looked briefly into Vesuvios to be told that the bartender was not only married to a man from County Cavan but went to school within five miles of where we live in Maryland - we said we'd say hi to her mom for her.

Beat poet central

At this point, Mabel was well overdue for a nap by either time zone, so we bought the kids a bread roll each to gnaw on and went back to the car to drive south to my cousins' house.  We even saw a cable car go by as we drove up the hill.  

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities (not that I'm as seasoned a global traveller as many of my friends) and the opportunity to show some of it to my offspring - well, I think that's one of the reasons we have children, isn't it?

Fight or flight

I write to you from 35,000 feet in the air, somewhere over Colorado, with 1340 miles still to go. I am sandwiched between my two beloved children, but I have to say that if you have to fly with kids, I highly recommend a six year old and a three year old. Dash is playing Angry Birds (or Angry Pigs, as Mabel called it this morning), and has far surpassed the adults in his technique, and Mabel was happily engrossed in an episode of Diego, but has now gone to meet the four-year-old sitting beside her father, leaving me with a chance to blog. 

(Not that I can press publish, of course. I'm just typing up a word document right now.) 

I know I haven't even told you about the party yet, and we'll get back to that, but from the plane I will tell you plane stories. 

****** 

In the past, when I've flown with my kids, I've never had anything less than lovely experiences with the people sitting near us. At the worst, they've been uninterested, which of course is a terrible slight when I have the two cutest, cleverest, best-travelled children on the plane, but we can cope with that. This time, it was different. On Thursday, I got Bitch-Lady. 

Our encounter began badly, I admit. I had put my backpack up above the seat, and got Mabel settled in beside me in her carseat. She had the window, I was in the middle, some as-yet unknown person (Bitch-Lady, as it happened) was going to have the aisle seat, and then B and Dash were by the window on the other side of the aisle. Like this: 

[Window] Mabel | Maud | Bitch-Lady -----  Some Guy | B | Dash [Window]  

Clearly, not ideal. But most people would make the best of things, no? Or figure out some way to swap. At least she had the aisle. She was even traveling with the man in front of Mabel's seat, so I don't know why she hadn't tried to swap with his neighbour in the first place. 

Anyway. Mabel and I were sitting down and B-L had just arrived and taken out a pack of wet wipes (should have been a clue), when I realised that the New Toy To Distract Mabel On The Journey was still in my backpack. I indicated politely to B-L that I needed to stand up and get something from overhead. So I stood in my seat - the middle one - and tried to reach into the bin, which had already been closed by some eager beaver. My small backpack had been pushed right to the back behind a big bag belonging to said eager beaver. I couldn't get it out from where I was standing, so I - politely - indicated that I might step onto her seat, so I could reach better without inconveniencing the people who were still filtering down the aisle to their seats. She looked at me as if I had suggested that she just hold my dog poop for a second while I find a baggie.  

"No. Absolutely not. I just wiped it. Stand in the aisle and get it from there,"she said. "But I can't reach from the aisle," I replied, reasonably. She was shorter than I; I thought she would have understood that. I moved into the aisle, stood up in the seat behind hers, where nobody had yet arrived to prohibit me, and finally fished out the bag. I couldn't close the overhead bin again on her large carry-on, but I didn't consider that much of a problem. The attendants always close them when everyone's done, right?  

No, apparently that was a problem. She ostentatiously stood in the aisle repeatedly trying to close the overhead bin, remarking to anyone who would listen that it had been closed already. She finally managed it, sat down, took her wet wipes out again and proceeded to wipe every part of her seat and table. Her little bottle of hand sanitizer stood at the ready on her tray table, to be used frequently. I really, really wanted to hand her my snotty three-year-old and ask her to help blow Mabel's nose, but I forebore. 

So, we got through the flight. Every now and then Mabel needed to use the bathroom - our first flight without diapers, and she was a superstar - or wanted to go and visit Daddy, and Bitch-Lady would make a great show of sighing and unbuckling her seatbelt, and then standing in the aisle until we came back. At one point she was chatting to her companion in the row in front, clearly gesticulating though I didn't understand the language, showing that we were a constant parade of in, then out, then in, then out... A couple of times I needed to hand something across to B or take something back. She didn't like it, I could tell. She probably wanted to sanitize the air through which my hand had moved. 

Mabel wanted to go and visit Daddy at one point. B-L sighed pointedly, and I said, "You don't have to get up. I can just hand her over." I had clearly offered to pass a vat of bubbling lava across her lap, or maybe a steaming pile of horse manure, judging from the look she gave me. 

To be honest, I wish they had child-free airplanes too, so that people like her didn't have to sit beside people like me. I don't mind sitting near other people's kids, because what goes around comes around and every parent knows that if their kid isn't the one screaming today, it's only because they were that other time, or they will be the next time.  If B-L had been beside the two-and-a-half-year-old in the seat behind Mabel, who was wearing a diaper but had obviously decided that visiting the bathroom was more fun than trying to take a nap, and so went out about four times in twenty minutes, she would have been even more disgruntled. As young children on planes go - and I've seen my share - Mabel was a delight. She entertained herself for long stretches of time, only visited the bathroom three times in five hours, did not scream or cry at takeoff or landing, or in between, and - I can't stress this enough - didn't throw up or even pee herself. Given the gamut of possible bodily fluids, a little snot on the sleeve is pretty mild.  

When we arrived at our gate for the return flight this morning (Monday) the first person I saw was Bitch-Lady, coincidentally also having spent four days in the Bay Area. I smiled cheerily and greeted her in a friendly manner. She was deeply aghast. 

 I sort of wished we were sitting beside her again, just to piss her off, but mostly I was glad she was far, far away at the other end of the plane. Anyway, Mabel wasn't nearly so snotty today.